Tristan Abrahams scored a late equaliser to earn never say die Welling United a second chance at Gosport Borough in the F.A. Cup Third Qualifying game. After the match Danny Bloor spoke to Mark Doig with his thoughts on the draw.
When asked whether Welling had got out of jail or had deserved to take it to a reply, the Wings’ manager Danny Bloor said. “I think we got what we truly deserved. We were outstanding (in the)first half and to come in only leading by one goal was a travesty really.
“I felt that we were by far the best team in the first half. Tris (Tristan Abrahams) had a great opportunity to put us two-nil up just before the break. I said to them at half time, they’re a good side, this will be difficult and then it was like Keystone Cops for ten minutes.
“A couple of errors (costing goals) and we were down to ten men and it was tricky but fair play to this group of boys, that’s three games running where we trailed. They’ve got some character, haven’t they, to come back and force a replay on Wednesday night at Park View Road.
Bloor was happy to still be in the tournament but admitted that he did have a few words to say in the changing room at the end.
“The objective is to be in the hat, and our name is in the hat, but there were things for about ten/fifteen minutes I was bitterly disappointed with.” he said “It’s hard enough when you’ve got eleven v eleven but when you get someone sent off it makes things a lot harder.
“You just have to keep going. Football’s a one hundred minute game now, two minutes added time in the first half, eight in the second, you just keep going, going, going and we need to do some things better in the replay.
“Other than the first five/six/seven minutes, I thought we were excellent. We controlled the game in the first half. We got the ball wide. Jephte (Tanga) was a threat as always. Kain Adom scored but the events in the second half took the gloss off a fantastic goal. We’ll dust ourselves down and we’ll go again in the replay.”
Some decisions didn’t go Welling’s way with a couple of strong penalty appeals turned away. However, Bloor chose to keep his thoughts to himself, and preferred to praise a large contingent of travelling supporters, despite a train strike.
“I don’t criticise referees and I’m going to leave it at that today. Massive thanks again to the Welling United fans who travelled here this afternoon.”
Images courtesy of Dave Budden